


Normal is the Watchword

by papergraffiti



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Angel/Buffy AU, Episode: s01e08 I Will Remember You, F/M, How I wish this episode would have ended, mohra demons and their magical blood, wow this is really old fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-18
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-04-21 10:19:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4825268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/papergraffiti/pseuds/papergraffiti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is the strangest thing of all to know that he can walk into the light.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Normal is the Watchword

**Author's Note:**

> So I found this really, really old fic kicking around in my archives, and I thought I'd post it. This episode on Angel really destroyed me when it first came on TV and stuck with me for years. Buffy and Angel will always be my first obsessive star-crossed ship. <3

Blood courses through his veins for the first time in hundreds of years, his heart beats a staccato rhythm in a chest ill-used to rising and falling with even breaths. Sun dapples his skin with no fire, only warmth, and it is the strangest thing of all to know that he can walk into the light.

Her light.

Angel has lost too much in this life to trust easily, to accept gifts without caution, but he knows that before he throws this chance away, he must give in to one last dream.

There is no way she can feel him in her blood now, his demon gone and no longer calling to her, but she turns as if she senses him. They come together like a thunderclap, and Angel dimly muses that it must have sounded like an earthquake.

His mouth moves over hers, muscle memory recalling how she likes to be kissed. He rediscovers the delicate arch of her neck, cradled in his palm, wonders at the heat of her. He can do nothing but sink into this moment, because soon it will be over and he will have to decide what to do with this newfound life.

Buffy moves against him, her body sinuous and insistent. Her hands come up to tangle in his hair, her lips slanting against his with practiced ease. 

For a moment he fears for his soul before he remembers that the monster inside him is gone. 

Hours later, they find themselves cocooned in the dimness of Angel's bedroom, their teacups fragmented and forgotten under the broken pieces of the kitchen table and Buffy's sweater hanging haphazardly off the doorknob.

The sweat that cools on his skin stings in the furrows scored along his back, across muscles that ache in a pleasant way he'd almost forgotten. Buffy smiles drowsily under him, trailing her tiny hands across his shoulders.

"Forgot about the slayer strength in the heat of," she says ruefully. "I'm not used to the softer side of Angel."

"It's worth it," he says. Her eyes are the color of spring after they make love. "I hope they leave a scar."

******

Angel is loathe to leave her, but he can't bring himself to wake her. The tiny, contented smile on her lips breaks his heart. Even hours later, when he's cradled in her arms on a dusty stone floor, feeling mortal pain for the first time in centuries, he still wishes he could strike out on his own just to save Buffy from fighting for one night. 

But it's impossible, he knows this now, and he knows other things he cannot yet admit. For now, he bleeds, and he listens to her breathe, and he tries not to think about what comes next.

******

"I want you to have a normal life," he pleads to her, watching the tears spill unchecked down her cheeks. "I want you to LIVE."

Buffy picks up the clock from his desk and hurls it against the wall, her face a mask of desperate emotion. "Normal's always the watchword isn't it?" she rages. "I don't care what the Mohra said, I can't lose you again. I WON'T lose you again."

"I can't be human and protect you. I can't watch you die and know I did nothing to prevent it!"

Buffy's shoulders go still while his bow in grief. 

"I'm the Slayer, Angel. One girl in all the world, remember? Nothing in the footnotes about an overprotective ex-vampire trying to throw his redemption away."

Her eyes cling to his as she steps into his arms. "I want this, Angel, this dream. I never thought we'd have anything close to normal, but here it is staring me in the face."

He feels his resolve crumble as he buries his face in her silky hair. "I want you to live, Buffy."

"Then help me make a life together," she says. 

Angel picks up the clock and traces a finger down the broken face. It's forever paused at one minute until nine.

******  
It's a new thing to drive down the highway in the day, top down on the convertible so that he can watch Buffy's hair spill behind her like golden ribbons in the wind. He squints at the road from behind dark sunglasses, feeling something in him uncoil and settle under the insistent beat of the sun. 

As they drive alongside the ocean, the salty air whips against the tiny cuts on his face from battle, but he doesn't care. It makes him feel alive, and that's something he's starting to get used to.


End file.
